The Panasonic Toughbook CF-31 is a 13-inch touch-screen laptop that shrugs off incredible abuse.

The Panasonic Toughbook CF-31 ($4,843 street) is not indestructible. Let us shoot it with a machine gun or run over it with a bulldozer, and we bet we could put a dent in it. But put Panasonic's fully rugged laptop in harm's way with the kinds of environments and applications that police forces and field workers encounter, and it'll laugh off treatment that would shatter a normal laptop like Bonomo Turkish Taffysurviving 300 pounds of pressure on its closed lid, for instance, or repeatedly being dropped from six feet (while closed and switched off; from three feet while open and running), or ignoring nearly six inches of rain in an hour. The IP65 weatherproofing and MIL-STD-810G shock, vibration, and temperature torture tests are a laptop engineer's nightmare. The Toughbook CF-31 takes them in stride, making it overkill (and overpriced) for business travelers but a sturdy solution for vertical markets that demand maximum durability in a desktop replacement.

Similar Products

The CF-31 that Panasonic sent PCMag for review is an older model, with a first-generation 2.53GHz Intel Core i5-540M processor and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 graphics adapter. While a few of Panasonic's resellers such as Mobile Ingenuity are still selling such CF-31 Mark I systems, comparable units now on sale (at around the same price) feature newer Core i5-2540M and Radeon HD 6750 silicon. Presumably later this year we can look forward to CF-31 Mark III units built around Intel's new "Ivy Bridge" processors. The Toughbook's general design and rugged construction, however, remain unchangedas does the consistent docking-station and dashboard-mounting solution that's served Panasonic and its customers for over a decade.

Design
The CF-31 is a hefty small suitcase, measuring 2.9 by 11.9 by 11.5 inches and weighing 8.8 pounds, complete with a pull-out carrying handle on its front edge. The sides, bottom, and border of the lid are made of hard black plastic, with the lid and palm rest made of silver magnesium alloy. The handle has a hole and tether cable anchor to hold the plastic stylus for the touch screen.

Some touch screens are dim, but the Panasonic's 13.1-inch panel is exceptionally bright. Designed to be readable outdoors, it's almost too bright or washed-out indoors at its highest backlight settings, but offers vivid colors and sharp contrast at medium settings. It's an old-fashioned 1,024 by 768 non-widescreen with fairly narrow viewing angles, but the touch screen responds accurately to a tap of stylus or finger.

The chiclet-style keyboard has a clicky, medium-soft typing feel; Fn-F12 cycles through several backlight levels, though even the brightest is relatively dim. The Delete key is at the lower right, by the cursor arrows, instead of at the upper right where it belongs, but there are dedicated Home, End, PgUp, and PgDn keys. The touchpad is unfortunately tinyroughly 2.25 by 1.5 inchesand requires too much forcea sharp rapto register a tap, so we relied on its twin mouse buttons to click and the stylus or a finger to scroll or move the cursor large distances.

Features
The CF-31's ports and pieces are hidden behind hinged doors or panels that snap shut with a secure click. On the Toughbook's left side are the double-latched battery pack and a cupboard door revealing the modular DVD±RW drive; PC Card, ExpressCard, and Smart Card slots; and an SD memory card reader. On the right are the removable 250GB hard drive (320GB in current models) and HDMI, Ethernet, and two USB 2.0 ports plus the AC power connector. Two more USB 2.0 ports, a docking station connector, a VGA port, and headphone and microphone jacks are at the rear, along with a serial port.

Our test unit was also outfitted with a fingerprint reader for security and Gobi 2000 3G mobile broadband, as well as 802.11a/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Windows XP was preinstalled, with Windows 7 Professional32-bit, not 64-bitprovided on DVD. We installed the latter for our tests; normally we'd gripe about a 32- rather than 64-bit OS for gamers and media editors, but we don't think people are likely to use such apps on a Toughbook. Indeed, we suspect most customers will either use specialized vertical-market software for the likes of patrol cars and utility crews or focus on customized in-house applications. We also think their laptops will be just getting broken in by the end of Panasonic's three-year limited parts and labor warranty.

Performance
We also think that most Toughbook users aren't interested in raw speedthey're more concerned with whether their laptops can withstand drops from three feet while operating (ours did, with no ill effects aside from the display flopping down) or other abuse (such as standing on ours). That said, the dual-core Core i5-540M-equipped CF-31 with 4GB of RAM proved to be no speed demon, but a tolerable, faster-than-a-netbook performer for everyday purposes.

The Radeon HD 5650 discrete graphics helped the CF-31 to a playable 33.8 frames per second in Crysis at medium quality settings, though it missed the 30-fps threshold (23.3 fps) in Lost Planet 2 and fell to an unplayable 8.4 and 14.5 fps in the two titles, respectively, at high quality settings.

The CF-31 has a hefty 91Wh battery pack, which lasted a respectable 6 hours 8 minutes in our MobileMark 2007 rundown test. That's three hours shy of the exceptional Toughbook CF-S10 time, but ahead of the Dell Latitude E6420-XFR.

For most laptop shoppers, the Panasonic Toughbook CF-31 is almost off the charts both application- and budget-wise; the company makes semi-rugged and business-rugged Toughbooks with more mass-market appeal. But for professionals who need its extreme durability, it's a rock-solid (almost literally) choice.

Read More

About the Author

Formerly editor-in-chief of Home Office Computing, Eric Grevstad is a contributing editor for PCMag and Computer Shopper, where he earlier served as lead laptop analyst and executive editor, respectively. A tech journalist since the TRS-80 and Apple II days, Grevstad specializes in lightweight laptops, all-in-one desktops, and productivity software... See Full Bio

Panasonic Toughbook CF-31

Get Our Best Stories!

This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.